How Humiliating
We all know the feeling. Our face turns red as blood rushes to our cheeks. We start to perspire and our palms grow sweaty. Our breath comes quickly and our stomach drops like a weight. We stumble over our words as we think of ways to defend ourself.
No one likes being humiliated.
But while humiliation is not a flavor of tea I would eagerly choose, what if humiliation is necessary for growing to be more like Christ Jesus?
Humiliation Grows Compassion
In seventh grade, I tripped in the church parking lot in front of my entire middle school youth group. We were mingling outside—at least fifty of us insecure adolescents—and I didn’t see the curb. I ripped a hole in the knee of my leggings, and then cried as the scrape burned and my confidence shattered. When I called my mom and begged her to come get me, I thought, I will never show my face again.
“I remember being twelve, feeling awkward and ashamed, and I’d like to think I’m more compassionate because of that long-ago skinned knee.”
This memory sticks with me thirty years later, but that humiliating incident softened my heart toward the outcasts and the embarrassed. My husband and I help Sundays in the middle school classroom at our church. I remember being twelve, feeling awkward and ashamed, and I’d like to think I’m more compassionate because of that long-ago skinned knee.
Humiliation Grows Dependence
As I neared my fortieth birthday, I tripped again (rushing down a flight of stairs is never a good idea). I felt a pop and intense pain in my calf but convinced myself I was fine. It will get better, I kept thinking, and I limped an entire summer as I accompanied my kids to soccer games and t-ball practices.
The humiliating part is, when I finally went to the doctor, the MRI showed a completely ripped Achilles’ tendon. While I don’t have a list of the Christ-like attributes I gained from that experience of casts, crutches, and humbly re-learning to walk after surgery, I do recall sorting through wrong attitudes during that time. Humiliation causes self-reflection and uproots sins like pride and self-reliance. A new reliance on Christ surfaced. I grew in dependence as I was forced to lean into him.
Humiliation of A Biblical Hero
Peter knows about humiliation. When Peter denies knowing Jesus, the story gets recorded in all four Gospels. Beforehand, Peter assumes his loyalty will shine. He’s the disciple who stands out; the smart one who recognizes Jesus is the Messiah as exclaimed in John 6:68. And then, just as Jesus predicts, Peter fails three times before the rooster crows. The humiliation Peter felt that Friday would have been unbearable. Sunday hadn’t yet arrived.
Later, when Peter meets Christ Jesus on the beach after the resurrection, Peter is not rejected. Instead, Jesus talks with him. And we know from Scripture God chose Peter to build his church. I remember reading about Peter as a young Christian when I searched the Scriptures to know if God’s grace was unconditional. He’s proof. I’m glad to know of Peter’s humiliation because the glory of God’s grace and forgiveness shines in his story. God is good and his grace extends to all, even to Peter in such a humiliating instance. From humiliation comes a harvest of glory.
“From humiliation comes a harvest of glory. ”
Peter’s boldness in Acts 2 surely stems from this great humiliation covered by Christ’s sacrifice. He announces Jesus as the Messiah to a crowd of thousands in the same Jerusalem where he once denied knowing the Christ. Humiliation grows Peter’s love for his Savior (see Luke 7:36–50 for another example of this.) A person forgiven much has much love.
Humiliation coupled with repentance leads to a growing Christ-like holiness. It causes a person to lose self-consciousness, throw off fear, and give everything to follow Jesus.
Humiliation in the Everyday
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer” (Ps. 19:14).
But what about when my words are not? I once hurt a dear friend with words so unkind and senseless. After I said them, they struck hard. My humiliation lingered even after she accepted my sincere apology. Sometimes I’m still taunted by the humiliation of those words I uttered.
John Starke talks about humiliation in The Possibility of Prayer as an opportunity to run to Christ immediately, not later. When I rehearse words said, I’m left with regret. But when I remember Christ’s payment for sins once and for all, I truly can hand them over to him in surrender. He is “my redeemer,” as the Psalmist says. And so, in humiliating times, I grow in faith as I apply the good news of the gospel to my own failures.
In moments of humiliation I also grow in friendship with Christ, remembering that, indeed, he will never leave or forsake me and nothing can separate me from God’s love. A friend might be unforgiving of my faults and upsetting words, but Christ will not withhold forgiveness. And so, in humiliation I lean into Christ and his work on the cross that made friendship with God possible.
The gospel is about looking at Christ because only he is perfect. And, “by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Heb. 10:14). He has perfected for all time because of the one-time instance at the cross when he died to cover our faults. Jesus was without sin and was the perfect sacrifice. And so, we celebrate his death and resurrection at Easter and every day because this is hope for the humiliated.
Humiliation and Holiness
As we seek after this glorious and gracious God, we run from temptation and we repent of our sin. He gives us oneness with him. He gives us a new identity. The moment we first trust in him, we have automatic holiness. But we know that’s a status, not an auto-pilot sort of thing. As we walk in this unearned holiness and repent daily of our humiliating shortcomings, we give God glory and we grow in the likeness of Christ.
There’s pressure to be right. But when Christ-followers strive to portray their own perfection it’s a stumbling block to the message of the gospel. And this is a horrifying, humiliating thought. If I curate my own image to portray my own glory, I may block someone from seeing the gospel and the goodness of God. Imagine if we didn’t have examples like Peter or Paul, who repented of their wrongness and received God’s grace in Christ Jesus.
Paul says, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Cor. 12:9). Paul too knows humiliation. Did he ever feel embarrassed of his past, ashamed of being someone who used to persecute Christians? Surely. And yet, in his humiliation, the man who counted himself as the worst of sinners could say in confidence that he considered his life worth nothing to him except to share the good news of Jesus Christ with others in the world.
Speaking of humiliation, the greatest example is Christ. He took our shame onto himself when he hung humiliated on a wooden cross. This humiliation enabled something greater; he broke the power of sin and death. If Jesus (“who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,” Phil. 2:6) could humble himself like that, then it goes to show how humility really does produce what’s better and necessary.
And so, when I’m feeling humiliated by something I did or said, I am reminded to run to God first. While I tend to be clumsier and more red-faced than most people I know, in times of humiliation I’m growing in trust and dependence on Christ Jesus, who not only values humility but modeled it himself. When I reflect on my Achilles’ tendon, I marvel at how, just a few years after the incident, I can walk and run as if it never happened. I can now rejoice after times of humiliation, because rightness is found in Christ Jesus, our friend and Savior who grows us to be more like him.
Hebrews 4:14–16, “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”